E-mail
del.icio.us
Technorati
DiggYahoo! Inc. executives spoke with a sense of urgency during Tuesday's earnings announcement about the need to turn things around at the beleaguered Internet media company; nevertheless, expect the cries for a sale of the company to increase if no visible progress is made soon.
By replacing CEO Terry Semel with Jerry Yang and promoting Susan Decker to company president, Yahoo! bought itself some time to orchestrate a turnaround, but the timetable apparently has been pushed out with the company lowering revenue and earnings expectations for all of 2007.
But there was good news as well, beginning with the results from Yahoo!’s recently rolled out Panama search platform, which is producing double-digit revenue gains compared with last year. In addition, the company said it would examine its Web assets critically and deploy resources to better maximize their potential.
But price action in Yahoo!’s shares on Wednesday shows some investors won’t wait around to see if the new regime can execute a turnaround. Midday, shares were down around 5% at $26.20.
After hearing the latest from Yahoo!’s execs, Youssef Squali, an analyst with Jefferies & Co., said the company’s near-term execution will be the key to whether it stays independent.
“One of two things is likely to happen within the next 12-18 months, in our view,” Squali writes. “Either management is successful in executing against its (and Street) growth expectations, or they're not, in which case the chances for a sale increase significantly.” —David Shabelman
See June 19 story from TheDeal.com
See June 19 story from TheDeal.com
See June 12 story from TheDeal.com
